


Keep the Fire Burning

by Alliemackenzie28



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Everyone lives, F/M, Fluff, Graphic Descriptions of Injuries, Happy Ending, M/M, Probably some angst in there too, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 16:17:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17062952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alliemackenzie28/pseuds/Alliemackenzie28
Summary: The world ends, but the Leafs have each other.





	1. November

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GoThruTheStars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoThruTheStars/gifts).



> This is ongoing, but can be read as a finished work.
> 
> Warnings: Please let me know if you'd like more info! I'm happy to end you an edited version or just get super detailed with questions like 'are all dogs immortal and untouchable in this 'verse?' (yes. yes they are)  
> The world ended, so everyone died, including the families of all the Leafs, but we're just not gonna deal with that cause I have enough angst in my real life.  
> There will be graphic descriptions of injuries, illnesses, and treatments.  
> There will be guns and possibly gun violence.  
> There will probably be a permanently disabling injury at some point, but it will not be treated as the end of the character's usefulness, and the character won't just be their injury.  
> I'm a whumper, so there will be whump. RPF whump. If that's not your thing, turn around now. I absolutely do not wish harm on any real people here- I'm just using their faces and my perceptions of their personalities and team dynamics to write fiction.  
> If you got here by googling yourself or someone you know, well... read on and let me know what you think! If you're Tyler Seguin, don't worry, I'll write about you too.

Patty carries the kid into town on a Saturday. He’d been checking his trap line when he’d tripped right over a lump in the snow, a bundle of rags, he’d thought. 

He’s stumbling with fatigue by the time he walks through the makeshift wooden gate that Marty opens for him, so he hands the bundle over to Freddy and follows Christina to the big room upstairs they call home. 

Freddy takes the kid straight to Naz, lays him out on the table they use for exams and surgeries. Right now it’s covered with coats. The kid doesn’t react at all when they strip his wet clothes off of him. Auston and Willy come in a minute later, sent by Patty no doubt. “Firewood,” says Naz, and Auston runs for it. Soon they’ve moved the kid to the front of the fire. Freddy is still on guard duty, so Auston’s the one to take off the camo and faux-fur creation he calls a coat and tuck himself in next to the kid.

The kid- the man, Auston thinks, cause he’s nearly the same age as Auston- doesn’t stir for nearly three hours. But just as Auston’s starting to wonder if this is a lost cause, the bundle in his arms stirs. Auston pulls back to see a pair of tired eyes blinking back at him, the pale lips forming words but making no sound. “Just rest. You’re safe,” he tells him. The man tugs at the front of Auston’s threadbare shirt but his eyes flutter shut again.

Naz has broth and a spoon, and Auston sits the man up so they can get some into him. It’s slow work, but after a few cups, the man starts anticipating each bite, opening for it and swallowing quickly and then opening for more. He must be hungry.

Finally, after another long nap and another huge bowl of soup, he starts shivering. Naz is very pleased by this development, although the man looks uncomfortable and cold. He shivers against Auston for half the night, tucked between Auston’s broad chest and the fire that Willy keeps stoked high.

Before the sun rises, Auston wakes to the man shifting. They’ve got the same problem, so Auston pulls him to his feet and helps him to the door and they both piss out into the snow. The man’s legs give out almost the second he’s done, so Auston picks him up and carries him back to their nest by the fire. Propped against the couch with their rescue in his lap, Auston eats the breakfast of Oreos and beans Christina and the Marleau boys bring them.

“What’s your name?” Auston asks. The man is still sagged against him, scooping the last bits of maple-bacon bean goop out of the bottom of his can, fingers blackend from the charred-off label. 

“Mitch.”

“I’m Auston.”


	2. February

Winter had been long and hard. They’d run out of furniture from the nearby houses and had started burning porch railings and siding that Freddy and Kappy and Reilly had knocked off with sledge hammers and dragged back on tarps they’d taken from the tiny hardware store in the center of town. They’re almost through, though. So close to surviving their first winter after everything went down. Firewood runs low again when Reilly catches a cold and is out for a week. Patty gets moved to firewood duty, but even then they can’t keep up. 

Mitch is doing better than he had been when patty had first carried him in from the snow in November, but he’s still painfully thin, collarbones standing out in the wide neck of the sweater Auston had brought back for him, fingernails and lips going blue if he takes more than a short trip outside.

They burn what wood they have low and slow in the one stove in the living room of the little cabin, packing in all the mattresses at night and sleeping almost on top of each other, with Reilly at the very front. Auston has slowly gotten himself up next to Mitch, who sleeps perpendicular to Reilly, and who had confided in Auston that when the wind blows hard at night, it comes up through the vent in the floor next to his sleeping spot. Auston puts his stuff right over top of the vent, and although he sometimes wakes up from the drafts, he looks at Mitch, sleeping soundly between him and the fire, and is happy he’s able to take the cold for him. Patty sits awake sometimes too, watching his wife and kids sleep, and he and Auston silently acknowledge each other in the flickering light of the fire. Their team- their family- is safe, all there together, sharing heat, sharing resources, surviving together.


End file.
